Students given class rank option
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
9/11/2009

Seniors students with college dreams on their mind will have a new option for the 2009-10 school year when they’re applying for colleges. Jim Riordan, director of the district guidance department, said students will have the option of reporting their class rank to potential colleges in the future.

Over the past several years, Riordan said the district has seen several cases of students being excluded for admission to a college based on their class rank, despite having solid GPA and SAT scores. Because there are so many college applicants, Riordan said many schools are using a class rank “cutoff” to automatically screen out potential students.

Class rank can be misleading, Riordan said, and in many cases does not accurately represent a student’s achievement at either of the high schools. For example, if a student takes higher level courses, such as honors or advanced placement, and receives a “B” average during their tenure, Riordan said that’s a fairly strenuous course schedule.

However, they would likely not find themselves much higher than 50 percent in the class ranking system.

“That’s unfair. Parents have been telling me this for years,” Riordan said. “I don’t think this option will hurt our students in any way shape or form. Having an option on the admissions process is crucial. We’ve given our kids a choice to do this. “

The option is all or nothing, Riordan said, with students either choosing to report their class rank when applying for colleges or not reporting. A student can’t pick or choose to report their class rank on a college by college basis, he said.

The option will most likely benefit the students who find themselves in the middle third of the class rankings, he said, between the 33rd and 66th percentile.

However, the district is going to be extremely flexible in the first year of the new program, Riordan said. If a student does not report their class rank to a school and the school requests it, the district will certainly publish the rank, he said.

“It’s a new initiative. If we see any trends that are hurting our students, we’ll just report the class size,” Riordan said. “We’re flexible with how we’ll look at this. If a school requests the rank in writing, we’ll send it to that school. If three schools contact the student and said they want the rank, the student can bring that to us and we’ll send it in.” He likened the option to “Score Choice,” a program that allows students to only publish their highest SAT score and not publish how many times they took the test when applying to colleges. It’s basically the same thing, Riordan said, student’s now have “Rank Choice.”

At the end of the 2009-10 school year, Riordan said the administration would complete an assessment of the program to see if it’s working or needs to be changed to be more effective.

Colleges throughout the country are looking at other factors to determine a student for admission, Riordan said. It’s quite a change from 1993, he said, when class rank was one of the highest factors a university looked at to determine admission.

Now some colleges tend to look at just more than class rank, he said, such as GPA, SAT scores, and extracurricular activities.

“From 1993 to 2006 we saw a steady decline in the use of class rank for the admission process in colleges across the nation,” Riordan said. “We had a mixed message from colleges. Some colleges were saying it’s OK to not report class rank. We’re seeing it as less of a variable in the admission process itself.”

Two public information sessions have been scheduled for parents and students to discuss the new program. One meeting is scheduled for Cherry Hill East High School on Monday, Sept. 14 at 6:30 p.m. in the library.

The second meeting is scheduled for Cherry Hill West High School on Tuesday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. in the library.